So It Is Remembered
by Platinum Dragoness
Summary: The legend told generations later by Red's descendants. CloudZackSephirothAeris


Title: So It Is Remembered  
**Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII.**  
Pairing: Cloud/Zack/Sephiroth/Aeris  
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII  
Theme: Jaime's themes, #31-I don't understand  
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 

_Once, long ago, gods lived here,_ they taught their cubs.

_But wasn't this a bad place, a place that raped and poisoned the Planet?_ they would ask.

_Yes,_ their elders would say, pawing at the rustling bones of the once great city. _It was a horrible place of abomination and evil and corruption and despair. That's _why_ the gods lived here._

Their pups stared wide-eyed, perfectly still except for the wind through their red fur, as they waited to hear more of the story.

_The Crisis from the Sky took control of those who controlled the city that was._

_It could do that?_ their pups always wanted to know.

_They had opened their hearts to darkness, so it was easy for the corruption to sink in. The Crisis had slipped free of the bonds place by the Ancients long before, and had the mad tyrants of the city create a son._

_How did they do that? How could the Crisis have a son?_

_The Crisis cells were put into the pup and he grew in the image of the Crisis. Those who created him called him Sephiroth._

_The demon Sephiroth?_

Their parents assured them they'd get to that. _So the Planet sent down the souls of _its_ most beloved children. And those who lived on the Planet at that time called the human Zack Fair and the Ancient Aeris Gainsborough._

_Zack… Aeris…_ their pups tested out the names.

_But, you see, the Planet had given its children free will, so things began going in a manner that had not been planned._

_How?_

_Well, first of all, Lord Zack joined the forces of the enemy._

_He did? Why?_

_Because he didn't know what he was, _they assured. _He was just a cub when he joined, the youngest ever admitted. Except one._

_Who, who?_

_Except Sephiroth, who had been raised in the hands of the enemy who stole the lifeblood of the Planet._

_Did they meet? Did they fight?_

_They met. And they should have killed each other. They should have _wanted_ to kill each other._

_They didn't?_ the pups would ask in confusion. _But they were made to be enemies._

_They were made to be mortals, or close enough. They fell in love._

_They did?_ they'd say. And some generations the pups would add _Eww_ and their elders would shush them.

_And they also met the Lady Aeris, who grew the most magnificent garden in the world, in the belly of the sunless city. They loved her too._

_They did?_

_Yes. And… there was another. Another human they loved, called Cloud Strife._

_Cloud the Chosen One?_

_Not yet._

_Not yet?_

_Cloud was nothing. He was just a little chocobo from the mountains._

_He was a chocobo?_

_Metaphorically. He was a gold who thought he was a misfit yellow,_ they explained. _And they took him into the pack, because they were like that._

_Did they hunt together?_

_Yes, Now Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud went hunting in the mountains, where the Crisis was imprisoned. Sephiroth was possessed by the Crisis, through the Jenova cells inside him. He burned the town where Cloud was whelped, hence the phrase "Going Sephiroth on your Niebelheim."_

_What did Zack and Cloud do?_

_They confronted him at the Well of the Crisis. They renounced their mortal hearts and killed him._

_But didn't he—_

_Shh. That will come. They were grievously wounded in the battle, so they were captured by the dark priest of the Crisis who created Sephiroth. Zack escaped, with Cloud. He could have escaped free, he could have made it back to Aeris, but he died so Cloud might live._

_Why?_

_Because he was a hero. Now Cloud was only a mere mortal and couldn't survive the blood of the Lifestream and the cells of the Crisis. So he took Zack's soul to repair the holes in his own and so took on his destiny._

_He could do that?_

_He had as many holes in his soul as a worm eaten apple and Zack's only wish was to heal him. So, Cloud walked in the paw prints of Zack._

_Was he good at it?_

_Some of it. Things didn't always work out, and there were the Crisis and the corrupt people who built the city running around everywhere. Now Aeris—_

_Where was she?_

_She was with Cloud. She left the pack to call down the power of the Lifestream to stop the Second Crisis from the Sky. The Crisis killed her in Sephiroth's form._

_Sephiroth killed her?_ their pups wondered.

_No. The Crisis took Sephiroth's image and shadow, but not him. Of course, Aeris couldn't be killed and she became infinitely more powerful in her ascended form as the Maiden of the Planet. And she and her consort Zack sent the Lifestream to stop the Second Crisis, while Cloud defeated the image of the Crisis as Sephiroth at the Northern Wastes where the Crisis first struck._

_Is that it?_ their pups wondered.

_No. Sephiroth had been created to be powerful, so he refused to remain just a memory and was ascendant._

_Ascendant?_

_When the Maiden sent the healing water from the sky, he burned the Crisis out of the Lifestream and rejoined Cloud the Chosen One and Aeris the Maiden Who Traverses the Planet and Zack in the Lifestream as gods._

_But isn't he the demon called on when someone dies?_

_He is the god of winter, of death, but also of sleep, not a kind god but a necessary one._

_So he really is a god?_

_Yes. Aeris is the goddess of spring and all its flowers, Cloud is the god of the vitality of summer, and Zack is the god of the majesty and acceptance of autumn._

_Acceptance?_

_Knowing that death is not the end nor will winter be everlasting. Maturity. Faith._

_Oh, _the pups say, not understanding, not yet.

_So in the end they were all happily ever after, together._


End file.
